Shakespeare's Plays Shakespeare's Plays Before the publication of the First Folio in 1623, nineteen of the thirty-seven plays in Shakespeare's canon had appeared in quarto format. With the exception of Othello (1622), all of the quartos were published prior to the date of Shakespeare's retirement from the theatre in about 1611. It is unlikely that Shakespeare was involved directly with the printing of any of his plays, although it should be noted that two of his poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were almost certainly printed under his direct supervision. Here you will find the complete text of Shakespeare's plays, based primarily on the First Folio, and a variety of helpful resources, including extensive explanatory notes, character analysis, source information, and articles and book excerpts on a wide range of topics unique to each drama. Tragedies The story of Mark Antony, Roman military leader and triumvir, who is madly in love with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623).

Coriolanus (1607-1608) The last of Shakespeare's great political tragedies, chronicling the life of the mighty warrior Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Hamlet (1600-1601) Since its first recorded production, Hamlet has engrossed playgoers, thrilled readers, and challenged actors more so than any other play in the Western canon. No other single work of fiction has produced more commonly used expressions . Earliest known text: Quarto (1603). Although there were earlier Elizabethan plays on the subject of Julius Caesar and his turbulent rule, Shakespeare's penetrating study of political life in ancient Rome is the only version to recount the demise of Brutus and the other conspirators. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). The story of King Lear, an aging monarch who decides to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, according to which one recites the best declaration of love. Earliest known text: Quarto (1608).

Macbeth (1605-1606) Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most stimulating and popular dramas. Renaissance records of Shakespeare's plays in performance are scarce, but a detailed account of an original production of Macbeth has survived, thanks to Dr. Simon Forman . Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Othello (1604-1605) Othello, a valiant Moorish general in the service of Venice, falls prey to the devious schemes of his false friend, Iago. Earliest known text: Quarto (1622). Celebrated for the radiance of its lyric poetry, Romeo and Juliet was tremendously popular from its first performance. The sweet whispers shared by young Tudor lovers throughout the realm were often referred to as "naught but pure Romeo and Juliet." Earliest known text: Quarto (1597). Written late in Shakespeare's career, Timon of Athens is criticized as an underdeveloped tragedy, likely co-written by George Wilkins or Cyril Tourneur. Read the play and see if you agree. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623).

Titus Andronicus (1593-1594) A sordid tale of revenge and political turmoil, overflowing with bloodshed and unthinkable brutality. The play was not printed with Shakespeare credited as author during his lifetime, and critics are divided between whether it is the product of another dramatist or simply Shakespeare's first attempt at the genre. Earliest known text: Quarto (1594). Histories One of Shakespeare's most popular plays, featuring the opportunistic miscreant, Sir John Falstaff. Earliest known text: Quarto (1598). This is the third play in the second tetralogy of history plays, along with Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry V. Earliest known text: Quarto (1600). Henry V is the last in the second tetralogy sequence. King Henry is considered Shakespeare's ideal monarch. Earliest known text: Quarto (1600). The first in Shakespeare's trilogy about the War of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Part two of Shakespeare's chronicle play.

Based on Hall's work, the play contains some historical inaccuracies. Earliest known text: Quarto (1594). Part three begins in medias res, with the duke of Suffolk dead and the duke of York being named Henry VI's heir. Earliest known text: Quarto (1595). Many believe Henry VIII to be Shakespeare's last play, but others firmly believe that he had little, if anything, to do with its creation. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). In the shadow of Shakespeare�s second tetralogy of history plays lies the neglected masterpiece, King John. Although seldom read or performed today, King John was once one of Shakespeare's most popular histories, praised for its poetic brilliance. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). More so than Shakespeare's earlier history plays, Richard II is notable for its well-rounded characters. Earliest known text: Quarto (1597). The devious machinations of the deformed villain, Richard, duke of Gloucester, made this play an Elizabethan favorite. Earliest known text: Quarto (1597).

Comedies All's Well That Ends Well (1602-1603) In 1767, a scholar named Richard Farmer concluded that this play is really the revision of Shakespeare's missing Love's Labour's Won, which was likely written around 1592. It is considered a problem play, due primarily to the character Helena and her ambiguous nature. Is she a virtuous lady or a crafty temptress? Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). As You Like It is considered by many to be one of Shakespeare's greatest comedies, and the heroine, Rosalind, is praised as one of his most inspiring characters. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). This is Shakespeare's shortest play, which he based on Menaechmi by Plautus. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Cymbeline (1609-1610) This play, modeled after Boccaccio's Decameron, is often classified as a romance. It features the beautiful Imogen, considered by many to be Shakespeare's most admirable female character.

Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Love's Labour's Lost is a play of witty banter and little plot, written during the early part of Shakespeare's literary career, when his focus was on fancy conceits and the playful nature of love. Earliest known text: Quarto (1598). Considered a "dark" comedy, Measure for Measure was inspired by Cinthio's Epitia and Whetstone's Promos and Cassandra. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). The character of Shylock has raised a debate over whether the play should be condemned as anti-Semitic, and this controversy has overshadowed many other aspects of the play. Earliest known text: Quarto (1600). The Merry Wives is unique amongst Shakespeare's plays because it is set in Shakespeare's England. It features the Bard's beloved character, Falstaff. Earliest known text: Quarto (1602). A magical exploration of the mysteries of love, and one of Shakespeare's best-known comedies. Earliest known text: Quarto (1600). The story of two very different sets of lovers, Beatrice and Benedick and Claudio and Hero.

The witty banter between Beatrice and Benedick is the highlight of the play. Earliest known text: Quarto (1600). Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608-1609) Portions of Pericles are ripe with imagery and symbolism but the first three acts and scenes v and vi (the notorious brothel scenes) of Act IV are considered inadequate and likely the work of two other dramatists. The play was not included in the First Folio of 1623. In Shakespeare's sources, Pericles is named Apollonius. Earliest known text: Quarto (1609). The Taming of the Shrew revolves around the troubled relationship between Katharina and her suitor, Petruchio, who is determined to mold Katharina into a suitable wife. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Hailed as a stunning climax to the career of England�s favorite dramatist, The Tempest is a play praising the glories of reconciliation and forgiveness. Some believe that Prospero�s final speeches signify Shakespeare�s personal adieu from the stage. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623).

Troilus and Cressida is difficult to categorize because it lacks elements vital to both comedies and tragedies. But, for now, it is classified as a comedy. Earliest known text: Quarto (1609). Shakespeare loved to use the device of mistaken identity, and nowhere does he use this convention more skillfully than in Twelfth Night. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). The tale of two friends who travel to Milan and learn about the chaotic world of courting. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). The Winter's Tale is considered a romantic comedy, but tragic elements are woven throughout the play. We have a first-hand account of a production of the play at the Globe in 1611. It is one of Shakespeare's final plays. Earliest known text: First Folio (1623). Today's Guess the Play William Shakespeare Biography - eNotes.com William Shakespeare Biography Trivia William Shakespeare Biography William Shakespeare left school at age fifteen, and his contemporary Ben Jonson said Shakespeare had “little Latin and less Greek”—so it wasn't his training.

It wasn't where he was born, either: Stratford is still a pretty small town even today. It wasn't a long career: Shakespeare wrote all of his great works in about a twenty-five-year span and died relatively young at fifty-two. It wasn't even his story ideas: the Bard adapted almost all his plots from known sources. No, what's impressive about Shakespeare is that his genius seems to have come from nowhere except himself. He penned comedies, tragedies, and lyric poems; and his mastery of language, character psychology, and emotion combined to make him one of the greatest writers in the English language. Facts and Trivia Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway when he was eighteen. She was eight years older and gave birth six months after the wedding—suggesting why they may have married due to a pregnancy. Shakespeare’s will leaves his “second best bed” to his wife. Who got the best bed—and why? In 1890, Eugene Schieffelin released eighty starlings into New York’s Central Park because they were mentioned in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I. There are now hundreds of millions of starlings in America. Actors try to avoid saying “Macbeth” in a theater.

Tradition (superstition?) says that it brings bad luck, so actors call it the “Scottish play” instead. Some say that Shakespeare didn’t write any of the works staged under his name. This theory became popular in the nineteenth century, and some say you can find clues to the real author (Francis Bacon?) all through the works... if you read closely enough. link Link William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, descended from tenant farmers and landed gentry. His traditional birth date, April 23, 1564, is conjectural. Baptism was on April 26, so April 23 is a good guess—and a tidy one, since that date is also St. George’s Day as well as the date of Shakespeare’s own death. One of Shakespeare’s grandfathers, Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield, rented land from the other, Robert Arden of Wilmcote. Shakespeare’s father, John, moved to nearby Stratford-upon-Avon, became a prosperous shop owner (dealing in leather goods) and municipal officeholder, and married his former landlord’s youngest daughter, Mary Arden.

Thus Shakespeare—the third of eight children but the first to survive infancy—was born into a solidly middle-class family in a provincial market town. During Shakespeare’s infancy, his father was one of the town’s leading citizens. In 1557, John Shakespeare had become a member of the town council and subsequently held such offices as constable, affeeror (a kind of assessor), and chamberlain (treasurer). In 1568, he became bailiff (mayor) and justice of the peace. As the son of a municipal officer, the young Shakespeare was entitled to a free education in the town’s grammar school, which he probably entered around the age of seven. The school’s main subject was Latin studies—grammar and readings drilled into the schoolboys year after year. The Avon River, the surrounding farmlands, and the nearby Forest of Arden offered plenty of opportunities for childhood adventures. When Shakespeare was a teenager, his family fell on hard times. His father stopped attending town council meetings in 1577, and the family’s fortunes began to decline.

Matters were not improved in 1582 when Shakespeare, at the age of eighteen, hastily married Anne Hathaway, the twenty-six-year-old daughter of a farmer from the nearby village of Shottery. She presented him with a daughter, named Susanna, approximately five months later. In 1585, the couple also became the parents of twins, Hamnet and Judith. As was then customary, the young couple probably lived in his parents’ home, which must have seemed increasingly crowded. The next mention of Shakespeare is in 1592, when he was an actor and playwright in London. His actions during the seven-year interim have been a matter of much curious speculation, including unproved stories of deer poaching, soldiering, and teaching. It may have taken him those seven years simply to break into and advance in the London theater. His early connections with the theater are unknown, although he was an actor before he became a playwright. He might have joined one of the touring companies that occasionally performed in Stratford-upon-Avon, or he might have gone directly to London to make his fortune, in either the theater or some other trade.

Shakespeare was a venturesome and able young man who had good reasons to travel—his confining family circumstances, tinged with just enough disgrace to qualify him to join the disreputable players. The theater was his escape to freedom; he therefore had strong motivation to succeed. More Content: Biography (hide) link Link I. Introduction Any discussion of Shakespeare's life is bound to be loaded with superlatives. In the course of a quarter century, Shakespeare wrote some thirty-eight plays. Taken individually, several of them are among the world's finest written works; taken collectively, they establish Shakespeare as the foremost literary talent of his own Elizabethan Age and, even more impressively, as a genius whose creative achievement has never been surpassed in any age. In light of Shakespeare's stature and the passage of nearly four centuries since his death, it is not surprising that hundreds of Shakespeare biographies have been written in all of the world's major languages.

Scanning this panorama, most accounts of the Bard's life (and certainly the majority of modern studies) are contextual in the sense that they place the figure of Shakespeare against the rich tapestry of his "Age" or "Times" or "Society." This characteristic approach to Shakespeare biography is actually a matter of necessity, for without such fleshing out into historical, social, and literary settings, the skeletal character of what we know about Shakespeare from primary sources would make for slim and, ironically, boring books. As part of this embellishment process, serious scholars continue to mine for hard facts about the nature of Shakespeare's world. The interpretation of their meaning necessarily varies, often according to the particular school or ideology of the author. Whatever the differences of opinion, valid or at least plausible views about Shakespeare, his character and his personal experience continue to be advanced. Yet even among modern Shakespeare biographies, in addition to outlandish interpretations of the available facts, there persists (and grows) a body of traditions about such matters as Shakespeare's marriage, his move to London, the circumstances of his death and the like.

The result of all this is that there is now a huge tapestry of descriptive, critical, and analytical work about Shakespeare in existence, much of it reasonable, some of it outlandish, and some of it hogwash. II. Three important points about Shakespeare In examining Shakespeare's life, three broad points should be kept in mind from the start. First, despite the frustration of Shakespeare biographers with the absence of a primary source of information written during (or even shortly after) his death on 23 April 1616 (his fifty-second birthday), Shakespeare's life is not obscure. In fact, we know more about Shakespeare's life, its main events and contours, than we know about most famous Elizabethans outside of the royal court itself. Shakespeare's life is unusually well-documented: there are well over 100 references to Shakespeare and his immediate family in local parish, municipal, and commercial archives and we also have at least fifty observations about Shakespeare's plays (and through them, his life) from his contemporaries.

The structure of Shakespeare's life is remarkably sound; it is the flesh of his personal experience, his motives, and the like that have no firm basis and it is, of course, this descriptive content in which we are most interested. Second, the appeal of seeing an autobiographical basis in Shakespeare's plays and poetry must be tempered by what the bulk of the evidence has to say about him. Although there are fanciful stories about Shakespeare, many centering upon his romantic affairs, connections between them and the events or characters of his plays are flimsy, and they generally disregard our overall impression of the Bard. In his personal life, Shakespeare was, in fact, an exceedingly practical individual, undoubtedly a jack of many useful trades, and a shrewd businessman in theatrical, commercial and real estate circles. Third, the notion that plays ascribed to Shakespeare were actually written by others (Sir Francis Bacon, the poet Phillip Sidney among the candidates) has become even weaker over time.

The current strong consensus is that while Shakespeare may have collaborated with another Elizabethan playwright in at least one instance (probably with John Fletcher on The Two Noble Kinsman), and that one or two of his plays were completed by someone else (possibly Fletcher on an original or revised version of Henry VIII), the works ascribed to Shakespeare are his. III. Birth and Early Life Parish records establish that William Shakespeare was baptized on 26 April, 1564. Simply counting backwards the three customary days between birth and baptism in Anglican custom, most reckon that the Bard of Avon was born on 23 April, 1564. This is, indeed, Shakespeare's official birthday in England, and, it is also the traditional birth date of St. George, the patron saint of England. The exact date and the precise cause of Shakespeare's death are unknown: one local tradition asserts that the Bard died on 23 April, 1616, of a chill caught after a night of drinking with fellow playwrights Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton. Shakespeare was, in fact, buried three days later, exactly 52 years after his baptism.

Shakespeare was born and raised in the picturesque Tudor market town of Stratford-on-Avon, a local government and commercial center within a larger rural setting, and it is likely that the surrounding woodlands of his boyhood were reflected in the play As You Like It, with its Forest of Arden. Shakespeare's mother Mary Arden was a daughter of the local gentry, holding extensive properties around Stratford-on-Avon in his name. In marrying Shakespeare's father, the glover and tenant farmer John Shakespeare, Mary Arden took a step down the social ladder of the Elizabethan Age, for her husband was of the yeoman class, a notch or two below the gentry. Yet long before his son's fame as a playwright fell to his good fortune, John Shakespeare's talents enabled him to rise modestly on his own accord as he became a burgess member of the town council. Despite evidence of a family financial setback when William was fifteen, Shakespeare's family was comfortable, if not privileged.

Shakespeare's eventual fame and success spilled over to his parents in the form of both money and title, and on the eve of his death in 1601, Queen Elizabeth granted the Bard's father a "gentleman's" family coat-of-arms. We have good cause to believe that Shakespeare attended Stratford Grammar School where he would have received a tuition-free education as the son of a burgess father. There young William was exposed to a standard Elizabethan curriculum strong on Greek and Latin literature (including the playwrights Plautus and Seneca, and the amorous poet Ovid), rhetoric (including that of the ancient Roman orator Cicero), and Christian ethics (including a working knowledge of the Holy Bible). These influences are pervasive in Shakespeare's works, and it is also apparent that Shakespeare cultivated a knowledge of English history through chronicles written shortly before and during his adolescence. Shakespeare left school in 1579 at the age of fifteen, possibly as the result of a family financial problem. Shakespeare did not pursue formal education any further: he never attended a university and was not considered to be a truly learned man.

There is a period in Shakespeare's life of some seven years (1585 to 1592) from which we have absolutely no primary source materials about him. We do know that in November of 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway (a woman eight years his senior), and that she gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, six months later. Two years after that, the Shakespeares had twins: Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet, Shakespeare's only son, would die at the age of eleven. Speculation has it that Shakespeare was not happy in his marriage, and that this may have played a role in his decision to move to London's theater scene. In fact, during the late 1580s and early 1590s, Shakespeare traveled back and forth between London and Stratford-on-Avon, but by this time, the momentum of Shakespeare's life was toward his career and away from family, hearth, and home.

Although we lack hard facts, we may surmise that before he took up a career as a playwright, Shakespeare engaged in a variety of occupations, probably working with his father in commercial trades (leathers and grains), probably working as a law clerk, and possibly serving as a soldier or sailor for an England threatened by Spain. Shakespeare displays a command of the argot and the practices of many such crafts, as in his portrayal of the law profession in trial scenes of The Merchant of Venice. IV. The Playwright Between the early 1590s (The Comedy of Errors) and the second decade of the seventeenth century (The Tempest written in 1611), Shakespeare composed the most extraordinary body of works in the history of world drama. His works are often divided into periods, moving roughly from comedies to histories to tragedies and then to his final romances capped by a farewell to the stage in The Tempest.

The question of how and whether the Bard's career should be divided into periods aside, we do know that Shakespeare received a major boost in 1592 (the earliest review of his work that we have), when playwright-critic Robert Greene condemned the future Bard as an impudent "upstart" beneath the notice of established literary men or University Wits. Greene's critical diatribe was soon retracted by his editor as a number of leading Elizabethan literary figures expressed their admiration for his early plays. Retreating from London in the plague years of 1592 through 1594, Shakespeare briefly left playwriting aside to compose long poems like Venus and Adonis and at least some of his sonnets. But during this period, Shakespeare garnered the support of his first major sponsor, the Earl of Southampton. Soon, as a leading figure in the Chamberlain's Men company he would garner even greater patronage from the courts of Queen Elizabeth and her successor, King James. Just as the rise of Shakespeare's success, popularity, and fame began to accelerate, he experienced a personal tragedy when his son Hamnet died in 1596.

Shakespeare undoubtedly returned to Stratford for Hamnet's funeral and this event may have prompted him to spend more time with his wife and daughters. In 1597, Shakespeare purchased a splendid Tudor Mansion in his hometown known as the New Place. During the period between 1597 and 1611, Shakespeare apparently spent most of his time in London during the theatrical season, but was active in Stratford as well, particularly as an investor in grain dealings. Shakespeare also purchased real estate in the countryside and in London as well, the latter including Blackfriar's Gatehouse which he bought in 1613. In 1612, four years before his death, Shakespeare went into semi-retirement at the relatively young age of forty-eight. He died on or about 23 April of 1616 of unknown causes. William Shakespeare's family lineage came to an end two generations after his death. His two daughters followed different paths in their father's eyes. His older daughter, Susanna, married a prominent local doctor, John Hall, in 1607 and there are indications that a close friendship developed between Hall and his renowned father-in-law.

Susanna gave Shakespeare his only grandchild, Elizabeth Hall in 1608. Although she inherited the family estate and was married twice (her first husband dying) Elizabeth had no children of her own. Shakespeare's other daughter, Judith married Thomas Quiney, a tavern owner and reputed rake given to pre-marital and extramarital affairs and the fathering of illegitimate children. They had three legitimate sons, all of whom died young. V. Shakespeare's World Most of Shakespeare's career unfolded during the monarchy of Elizabeth I, the Great Virgin Queen from whom the historical period of the Bard's life takes its name as the Elizabethan Age. Elizabeth came to the throne under turbulent circumstances in 1558 (before Shakespeare was born) and ruled until 1603. Under her reign, not only did England prosper as a rising commercial power at the expense of Catholic Spain, Shakespeare's homeland undertook an enormous expansion into the New World and laid the foundations of what would become the British Empire.

This ascendance came in the wake of the Renaissance and the Reformation, the former regaining Greek and Roman classics and stimulating an outburst of creative endeavor throughout Europe, the latter transforming England into a Protestant/Anglican state, and generating continuing religious strife, especially during the civil wars of Elizabeth's Catholic sister, Queen Margaret or "Bloody Mary." The Elizabethan Age, then, was an Age of Discovery, of the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the exploration of human nature itself. The basic assumptions underpinning feudalism/Scholasticism were openly challenged with the support of Elizabeth and, equally so, by her successor on the throne, James I. There was in all this an optimism about humanity and its future and an even greater optimism about the destiny of England in the world at large. Nevertheless, the Elizabethans also recognized that the course of history is problematic, that Fortune can undo even the greatest and most promising, as Shakespeare reveals in such plays as Antony & Cleopatra. More specifically, Shakespeare and his audiences were keenly aware of the prior century's prolonged bloodshed during the War of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York.

Many Elizabethans, particularly the prosperous, feared the prospect of civil insurrection and the destruction of the commonwealth, whether as a result of an uprising from below or of usurpation at the top. Thus, whether or not we consider Shakespeare to have been a political conservative, his histories, tragedies and even his romances and comedies are slanted toward the restoration or maintenance of civil harmony and the status quo of legitimate rule. link Link Shakespeare’s Language Shakespeare’s language can create a strong pang of intimidation, even fear, in a large number of modern-day readers. Fortunately, however, this need not be the case. All that is needed to master the art of reading Shakespeare is to practice the techniques of unraveling uncommonly-structured sentences and to become familiar with the poetic use of uncommon words. We must realize that during the 400-year span between Shakespeare’s time and our own, both the way we live and speak has changed. Although most of his vocabulary is in use today, some of it is obsolete, and what may be most confusing is that some of his words are used today, but with slightly different or totally different...

(The entire section is 4624 words.) Get Free Access link Link 1564: William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-upon-Avon. His notice of baptism is entered in the parish register at Holy Trinity Church on April 26th. While the actual date of his birth is not known, it is traditionally celebrated on April 23rd. 1571: Shakespeare probably enters grammar school, seven years being the usual age for admission. 1575: Queen Elizabeth visits Kenilworth Castle, near Stratford. Popular legend holds that the eleven-year-old William Shakespeare witnessed the pageantry attendant on the royal progress and later recreated it in his dramatic works. 1582: Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway of Shottery. The eighteen-year-old Shakespeare and twenty-six-year-old Hathaway are married on November 27th at Temple Grafton, a village about five miles from Stratford. 1583: Susanna, the first child of William and Anne Shakespeare, is born. Susanna's birth occurs five months after Shakespeare and Hathaway wed. Susanna dies in 1649.

1585(?): Shakespeare leaves Stratford sometime between 1585 and 1592, and joins a company of actors as a performer and playwright. 1585: Twins Hamnet and Judith Shakespeare born. Hamnet dies in 1596. Judith dies in 1662. 1589-90: Shakespeare probably writes Henry VI, Part One. The dates given for the composition of Shakespeare's plays, though based in scholarship, are somewhat conjectural. 1590-91: Shakespeare probably writes Henry VI, Part Two and Henry VI, Part Three. 1592: Shakespeare was known in London as an actor and playwright by this time as evidenced by his being mentioned in Robert Greene's pamphlet A Groats-worth of Wit. In this pamphlet (published this year), Greene chides Shakespeare as an "upstart crow" on the theater scene. Greene charges that Shakespeare is an unschooled player and writer who "borrows" material from his well-educated betters for his own productions. London theaters are closed due to plague.

1592-93: Shakespeare probably writes Venus and Adonis, Richard III, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 1592-94: Shakespeare probably writes The Comedy of Errors. 1593: Shakespeare probably begins composing his sonnets. He will eventually write 154 sonnets. Shakespeare's narrative poem Venus and Adonis is published. 1593-94: Shakespeare probably writes The Rape of Lucrece, Titus Andronicus, and The Taming of the Shrew. 1594: Shakespeare performs with the theater troupe the Lord Chamberlain's Men. The group includes leading actor Richard Burbage and noted comic performer Will Kempe. 1594-95: Shakespeare probably writes Love's Labour's Lost. 1594-96: Shakespeare probably writes King John. 1595: Shakespeare probably writes Richard II. The play is first performed the same year. Shakespeare probably writes A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play is probably composed for performance at a wedding. Shakespeare probably writes Romeo and Juliet.

1596: Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain, and patron of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, dies. Shakespeare's company comes under the patronage of George Carey, second Lord Hunsdon. Shakespeare probably writes The Merry Wives of Windsor. The play was performed before the Queen during the Christmas revels. 1596-97: Shakespeare probably writes The Merchant of Venice, and Henry IV, Part One. 1597: Shakespeare purchases New Place and the grounds surrounding the spacious Stratford home. 1598: Shakespeare appears in a performance of Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, and is listed as a principal actor in the London performance. Shakespeare probably writes Henry IV, Part Two. 1598-99: Shakespeare probably writes Much Ado About Nothing. 1599: Shakespeare probably writes Julius Caesar, Henry V, and As You Like It. The Lord Chamberlain's Men lease land for the Globe Theatre. Nicholas Brend leases the land to leading shareholders in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, including Shakespeare. Later this year, the Globe Theatre opens. Earliest known performance of Julius Caesar.

Thomas Platter, a German traveler, mentions the production at the Globe Theatre on September 21st in his diary. John Weever publishes the poem "Ad Guglielmum Shakespeare," in which he praises Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, Romeo and Juliet, and other works. 1600-01: Shakespeare probably writes Hamlet. 1601: Shakespeare probably writes the narrative poem The Phoenix and Turtle. 1601-02: Shakespeare probably writes Twelfth Night; or, What You Will and Troilus and Cressida. Shakespeare probably writes All's Well That Ends Well. 1603: A Midsummer Night's Dream is performed before the Queen at Hampton Court. Queen Elizabeth dies. The new king, James I (James VI of Scotland), arrives in London a month later, and proves to be a generous patron of the theater and of acting troupes. King James grants a patent, or license, to Shakespeare's acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. The patent is required for the troupe to perform. They take the name the King's Men to honor the new king.

The King's Men enact a play, probably As You Like It, before King James at Wilton. Shakespeare appears in a performance of Ben Jonson's Sejanus. This is the last recorded occasion of Shakespeare appearing in a theatrical production. An epidemic of the Black Death kills at least 33,000 in London. This is the worst outbreak of disease in London until the plague recurs in 1608. 1604: Shakespeare probably writes Measure for Measure. The play is staged at court before King James. Shakespeare probably writes Othello. The play is first performed at Whitehall on November 1st. 1605: Shakespeare probably writes King Lear. The Merchant of Venice is performed at court. The play is performed twice and is commended by the king. Shakespeare probably writes Macbeth. This play's Scottish background was almost certainly intended to celebrate the new king's ancestry. 1606: Shakespeare probably writes Antony and Cleopatra. 1607: Hamlet and Richard III are performed. The plays are acted aboard the British ship Dragon at Sierra Leone. 1607-1608: Shakespeare probably writes Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, and Pericles.

1608: The King's Men lease the Blackfriars Theatre. The Blackfriars was the first permanent enclosed theater in London. Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Cuthbert Burbage, Thomas Evans, John Hemminges, Henry Condell, and William Sly lease the theatre for a period of twenty-one years. Stage directions indicate that Shakespeare wrote The Tempest with specific features of the new playhouse in mind. London theaters are closed due to plague. This is one of the longest periods of theater closure due to plague: the playhouses are shut from spring 1608 throughout 1609. 1609: Shakespeare's sonnets are published. This publication of Shakespeare's sonnets is unauthorized. 1609-10: Shakespeare probably writes Cymbeline. 1610: The King's Men perform Othello at Oxford College during the summer touring season. An Oxford don records his impressions of the play in Latin, finding the spectacle of Desdemona's death, in particular, deeply moving. 1610-11: Shakespeare probably writes The Winter's Tale. 1611: Shakespeare probably writes The Tempest.

1612-13: Frederick V, the elector platine and future king of Bohemia, arrives in England to marry Elizabeth, King James's daughter. The King's Men perform several plays, including Othello and Julius Caesar. Shakespeare probably writes Henry VIII, most likely collaborating with John Fletcher, another highly reputed dramatist, on this history play. Shakespeare probably writes Cardenio, the only play of Shakespeare's that has been completely lost. 1613: Shakespeare probably writes The Two Noble Kinsmen. An entry in the Stationer's Register for 1634 indicates that this play was jointly written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher. The Globe Theatre burns down. 1614: The Globe Theatre reopens on the opposite bank of the Thames. 1616: Shakespeare dies on April 23rd. His burial is recorded in the register of Stratford's Holy Trinity Church on April 25th. 1619: Hamlet and several other of Shakespeare's plays are performed at court as part of the Christmas festivities. 1623: Anne Hathaway Shakespeare dies.

Shakespeare's fellow actors, John Hemminges and Henry Condell, compile and publish thirty-six of the dramatist's works. This collection is known as the First Folio. link Link Like many commoners who lived and died during the Renaissance, William Shakespeare left only a meager record on which scholars have been able to make inferences about his life both in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon and in London. Nevertheless, painstaking research of available church and civic records has allowed biographers to construct a reasonable portrait of the man commonly considered the greatest English writer and one of the world’s most significant literary artists. The documentary record, collected and analyzed painstakingly in scholarly monographs such as Samuel Schoenbaum’s William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (1975), suggests Shakespeare led a comfortable middle-class life, marketing his plays and managing a successful acting company, the profits from which made him wealthy and allowed him to spend considerable time in Stratford-upon-Avon during the final years of his life.

Baptismal records in Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, indicate that Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564; working backward, scholars have fixed by common agreement the date of his birth as April 23 of that year. He was the eldest son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, respectable city business people who achieved some status in the little community along the Avon River in western England. John Shakespeare rose to become an alderman and served for a time as bailiff, the highest office in the city. His son was undoubtedly educated in the grammar schools there. If the plays are any indication, William received a sound grounding in Christian ethics, rhetoric, and classical literature. He obviously understood Latin and possibly even some Greek, though Ben Jonson complained that Shakespeare’s classical education was seriously wanting. Because he did not attend a university, he did not benefit from the kind of entrée into polite society that contemporaries such as Jonson and later John Milton would have experienced. By the time Shakespeare began writing plays, he was conversant with ancient and modern historians and with philosophers such as Michel de Montaigne.

His clear use of writers, such as Giovanni Boccaccio and Geoffrey Chaucer, supports the claim that he was also quite familiar with literary works of the Continent and his native England. In 1582, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years older than he. The couple eventually had three children: a daughter, Susanna, and twins, a boy the Shakespeares called Hamnet and a girl, Judith. No doubt at some time during the decade of the 1580’s the aspiring playwright left his family in their Stratford-upon-Avon surroundings to make his fortune in London. There is no evidence that during his time away from his hometown Shakespeare was ever estranged from his wife and children. On the contrary, available evidence suggests he took great pains to maintain his domestic ties during the decades that he spent working in London. By 1592, Shakespeare had become sufficiently well known in literary circles to be the object of a now-famous attack by the English poet and playwright Robert Greene, who complained that the young upstart was being presumptuous in trying to compete with more distinguished members of the literary establishment.

Contemporary records refer to Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III (pr. c. 1590-1592, pb. 1594-1595) as early as 1589, and from that date until 1613 his comedies, histories, and tragedies were performed in open-air theaters and later in the private venues frequented by nobility and well-to-do citizens. During the 1590’s, Shakespeare also tried his hand at nondramatic poetry, publishing Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). He also began writing sonnets, a fashionable practice in the 1590’s, eventually completing a sequence of 154 poems which were published in 1609. Sometime around 1595 Shakespeare became a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, an acting troupe. In addition to his work as a playwright, he also performed on stage, appearing in his own works and in those by others, including dramas by rival playwright Jonson.

Shortly after the ascension of James I to the English throne in 1603, he joined the King’s Men, a troupe that enjoyed the special patronage of the sovereign. During these years of intense business activity in London, he maintained close ties to Stratford-upon-Avon, purchasing property and occasionally finding himself the plaintiff or defendant in various lawsuits there. Meanwhile, every year saw the introduction of one or more new Shakespeare plays into the London “season.” In 1608, he had become sufficiently well off to enter into a contract with half a dozen other theatrical entrepreneurs to purchase the second Blackfriar’s Theater in London. By 1610, it appears he had tired of London life. Evidence indicates that in that year he returned to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he enjoyed a life of active retirement. He continued to work on various dramatic productions, collaborating with younger playwrights on a number of scripts. He died at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23, 1616, and was buried there two days later.

link Link William Shakespeare was born in the provincial town of Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and died there in 1616. He spent most of his adult life in the London theaters and quickly attained a reputation as a dramatist, actor, and poet. Shakespeare’s company prospered under the reign of James I, and by the time of his retirement from playwrighting about 1612, Shakespeare had acquired a respectable fortune. His career as a poet, distinct from his more public career as a dramatist, was probably confined to perhaps a decade, between 1591 and 1601, although the sonnets were later collected and published (perhaps without his permission) in 1609. Because of the absurd controversies that grew, mainly in the nineteenth century, about whether Shakespeare actually existed, it is worthwhile pointing out that there are many official records (christening record, marriage license, legal documents, correspondence, and so on) which may be consulted by the skeptical. link Link William Shakespeare, greatest of English poets and dramatists, was born at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and died there in 1616.

Biographical information about him is scant, and much must be inferred from brief references to him by his contemporaries and from various church and civil records and documents regarding performance of his plays. His parents were John and Mary Arden; his father was a respectable middle-class businessman. Young William Shakespeare probably attended grammar school in Stratford (a small city in western England), where he apparently received a fundamental education in Christian ethics, rhetoric, and classical literature. Although he did not attend a university, his plays indicate his familiarity with ancient and modern history, many English and European writers, and philosophers such as Michel de Montaigne. Little else is known of his activities prior to 1590, save that in 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, eight years older than he, and had three children with her: a daughter named Susanna and twins named Hamnet and Judith. At some point during the 1580’s he moved to London. Most of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in London, and allusions in the writings of others, friendly and otherwise, show that by 1592 he was a dramatist of recognized achievement.

Francis Meres, in Palladis Tamia (1598), virtually establishes that his supremacy in comedy, tragedy, and narrative poetry was generally acknowledged, and this view is endorsed by later testimony, notably that of Ben Jonson. From 1594 on, Shakespeare was associated exclusively with the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, which became the King’s Company in 1603 on James I’s accession. This was the most stable and prosperous of the Elizabethan dramatic companies. It built the Globe Theatre in 1599 and acquired the Blackfriars private theater in 1608. So far as can be ascertained, Shakespeare’s career as a dramatist covers the period from about 1590 to about 1612, after which he apparently moved back to Stratford. His early years show him working in all categories. Chronicle histories are a conspicuous feature of the years from 1590 to 1599, and these reflect England’s self-awareness at a time when the threat from Spain was still acutely felt.

The same period saw the maturing of his comic genius, through such minor masterpieces as Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to the four great middle comedies, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. After 1600 Shakespeare’s drama takes a darker and deeper direction with the so-called “problem plays”: Troilus and Cressida, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Measure for Measure. As a group, they have led to the greatest critical disagreement. His great tragedies, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, are also from this period. In these titanic masterpieces the human response to the workings of a relentless and malign destiny is explored and exploited to the fullest, and the terrible logic of the action is communicated in language of ever-increasing urgency and intensity. Antony and Cleopatra, which is valued for its superlative poetry and the transcendent aspirations of its heroine, looks forward to the regenerative pattern of the late romances. Timon of Athens is excessive in its pessimism and was left unfinished, but Coriolanus is a triumphant, original accomplishment.

Though outwardly uninviting in both matter and manner, its emotional impact proves terrific, and its psychology is penetrating. The plays of Shakespeare’s final period are dramatic romances which present improbable persons and incidents and draw freely upon the musical and spectacular elements popular in the Court masques of the period. Here the themes of atonement and reconciliation, earlier treated in All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure, are coordinated in a general pattern of regeneration symbolized by the heroines. Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Cymbeline are uncertain in their handling of complicated plot material, but The Winter’s Tale is magnificent and intense, and The Tempest confers perfection on these endeavors. Henry VIII, last of the canonical plays, is thought to have been written in collaboration with John Fletcher. The Two Noble Kinsmen purports to be the product of the same partnership, but the alleged Shakespearean scenes have been denounced by many competent critics. Attempts to claim other dramatic works of the period for Shakespeare have, in the main, proved abortive, though it has now been established beyond reasonable doubt that The Book of Sir Thomas More (British Museum MS. Harley 7368) contains three pages of his work in autograph.

John Dryden justly claimed that Shakespeare “was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.” He is the supreme interpreter of human relationships, the supreme percipient of human frailties and potentialities. It is often alleged that he is no philosopher, that his mind is neither mystical nor prophetic, that the beatific vision of Dante Alighieri is beyond his scope. Even so, his thought, governed by the Christian neo-Platonism of his day, is earnest and profound. The comedies move ultimately to an acute awareness of the mutability of human affairs, and this sense of time’s implacability is crystallized in the Sonnets and communicated with poignancy in Twelfth Night. In the historical plays the curse which falls upon the commonwealth through the deposition and murder of an anointed king is pursued through successive manifestations of violence and anarchy, of which Falstaff is made finally the most potent symbol, until expiation is complete in Henry Tudor. Here the manipulation of history is determined by a clearly ordered conception of political morality no less than by an artistic conscience.

The same outlook is more flexibly presented in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and Ulysses’ great exposition of degree in Troilus and Cressida summarizes the acquired political wisdom of a decade. Cognate with the doctrine of degree, and informing the histories and tragedies at all stages, is the concept of absolute justice. Portia, in The Merchant of Venice, pleads that mercy is above justice, and this is exemplified, in strenuous and practical terms, in Measure for Measure. The conflict between justice and mercy is a conspicuous feature of the great tragedies, notably King Lear, and is ultimately resolved, in its tragic context, in Coriolanus, when the hero spares Rome and gains his greatest victory—that over himself. Cymbeline and The Winter’s Tale plunge (albeit artificially) into chaos comparable to the chaos of the tragedies, but the resolution now is in terms of reconciliation and regeneration instead of sacrifice and waste.

The Platonic vision of the Many and the One, which informs these plays and carries them nearly into mysticism, though dramatically new, is something which Shakespeare had earlier achieved in certain of the Sonnets and in the concentrated intricacy of The Phoenix and the Turtle, published in Robert Chester’s Love’s Martyr in 1601. Criticism has often erred in emphasizing particular aspects of Shakespeare’s art. In his work, action, thought, character, and language are not separable elements, and the reader’s response must be to a complex unity in which dramatic conceptions are simultaneously natural and poetic and language is unique and infinitely creative. The greatest Shakespeare critics—Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and A. C. Bradley—can always be read with profit and delight. The enormous mass of twentieth century criticism contains much that is of value, but if one has ears to hear and a heart to understand, one shall always find that Shakespeare is his own best interpreter.

link Link William Shakespeare’s status as an artist is succinctly captured in the opening line of Matthew Arnold’s sonnet dedicated to the dramatist: “Others abide our question; thou alone art still.” Although eighteenth century writers, critics, and playgoers found his work too artificial, too complicated, and too much given to extravagant wit and wordplay, since the nineteenth century he has been accorded primacy of place among English writers of all genres. Even in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, when new critical approaches to literature caused serious revision in the reputation of many other writers, Shakespeare remained universally revered as a writer of the first order, able to bring to life fictional creations in situations that teach the reader some of the eternal truths about human nature. To use another of Arnold’s phrases, Shakespeare continues to serve as a touchstone against which artistic excellence is measured. link Link William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is generally considered to be the greatest playwright and poet that has ever lived. His appeal is universal and his works have been translated, read, and analyzed throughout the world.

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, many poems, and 37 plays which have been grouped into comedies, histories, and tragedies. Shakespeare’s plays combine natural human conflict with dramatic flair producing entertainment that appeals to the audiences of today as well as the audiences for which they were written. Shakespeare understood human nature, and he created characters that portrayed human tragedy and human comedy. Some of his characters were fantastic and unworldly, yet they brought to the stage the... (The entire section is 547 words.) link Link The Life and Work of William Shakespeare William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is perhaps the most widely read English poet and dramatist in the world. His plays and poems have been translated into every major language, and his popularity, nearly 400 years after his death, is greater now than it was in his own lifetime. Yet very little is known about his personal and professional life. He was born in Stratford-on-Avon, a rural town in War¬wick¬shire, England.

The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he was baptized in Holy Trinity Church on April 26, 1564, and was probably born on April 23. His father, John Shakespeare, was a leather tanner, glover, alderman, and bailiff in the town. His mother,... (The entire section is 647 words.)

Question: Which is the only one of Shakespeare's plays to feature an animal in its title?
Answer: 'THE TAMING OF THE SHREW'